


time again

by bartsugsy



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartsugsy/pseuds/bartsugsy
Summary: a reunion coda.





	time again

 

 

**_won’t you kiss me on that midnight street_ **

 

It’s in his chest, fizzing up from the top of his stomach and through his rib cage, lacing itself around his heart. It’s pulsing out in a beat that feels too strong and too fast to be a heartbeat. It’s in the high points of his cheeks and his eyes, a numb tingling where the smile and the tears have mixed in together and maybe his breaths are deep and measured and maybe he’s still standing on both his feet, but this makes him feel like maybe he shouldn’t be. This, _this_ , the happiness racing it’s way through his body, finding a place in every extremity and blossoming out from the very centre of him, like more than he even remembered he could feel.

It’s a lot, not too much but a lot. And Robert is there next to him, smiling down sideways at him and throwing his arm around his neck like he’s done a thousand and one times and tugging him further in and it’s all Aaron can do to grip the back of Robert’s shirt into his fist and hold on. They’re staggering down the street and Aaron can’t stop laughing, _giggling_ , neither of them can, they’re laughing at an inside joke that only the two of them will ever know - a shared understanding of happiness and love and something deeper and something lighter and that fizzy happiness hasn’t stopped yet. Aaron just needs to hold on.

 

 

**_sweep me off my feet_ **

 

They get to the door and Aaron has the key but it’s theirs, it’s always been theirs. Robert is making a stupid joke and neither of them have stopped laughing since they left Vic’s anyway. Robert’s arm is still hooked around Aaron’s neck and it squeezes him in closer still, so that Aaron can smile up into another kiss, more a weird giggle against one another's mouths that sends a hot, sharp spike of something through Aaron all the same, before he roots around his pocket for the key. He jokes about them having to sleep on the street and any other time, he’d squirm out of Robert’s hold to focus but he can’t even do that because the feeling of Robert’s body pressed against his isn’t something he knows how to separate himself from when he’s only had it back for five minutes.

Robert’s arm loosens and his hand moves down to Aaron’s back, giving him enough space to get his key without sacrificing that warm line along both their sides where they’re pressed against one another, familiar but not familiar enough anymore and Aaron never wants to -

He turns to Robert, finds his eyes already smiling down at him in the soft porch light. He can feel Robert’s thumb circling just underneath his shoulder blade. He stares, doesn’t even necessarily have anything left in him to say, has done enough talking for a lifetime maybe, or at least for the moment, but then Robert’s eyes flick up to the door in question and Aaron can’t stop his eyes from rolling up as he finally moves away and takes the hint.

Robert follows him in awkwardly and shuts the door behind him quietly. Aaron’s eyes flick up to the ceiling, a silent reminder to Robert that Liv is asleep upstairs and Robert is already nodding in response by the time Aaron looks back down.

Their eyes catch as Robert stops moving his head and they stare. Aaron releases a breath, feels a strange relief, like he’s been holding it for too long without realising. The happiness pelting around inside of him instantly turns sharper and his chest raises up and sinks down in shallow movements as they look at each other.

He’s the best thing Aaron has ever fucking seen.

Aaron would never say it, although he’s been saying more than he ever thought he could tonight so maybe he doesn’t know what kind of limits he has on romance anymore. Robert steps forward slightly and Aaron means to take a step forward as well but instead somehow sort of just throws himself directly _at_ Robert and his arms are around his neck and they’re kissing and Robert is pressing every inch of their bodies together again like the two minutes of distance was too much and he’s asking for forgiveness and Aaron just pulls him closer, closer in until everything slows down and they’re just sort of breathing into one another.

Aaron slides his hands under Robert’s jacket and up around his shoulder, tries to catch it before it falls to the floor and ends up accidentally punching his hand into Robert’s arm lightly. He steps sideways to hang up Robert’s jacket and uses his free hand to rub over the spot he had caught in an apology, before taking his own jacket off. Rob is staring at Aaron still and Aaron feels his cheeks pull his mouth up into a smile before he even realises what he’s doing.

“ _Come on,_ ” he says, softly, reaching out for Robert’s hand to close the distance between them again, to pull him up towards their bedroom. Robert holds on and moves in close behind him, which feels dangerous on the insane spiral stairs that took Aaron months to get used to. Robert won’t be used to them yet, he thinks. He feels another very quiet snort of laughter punch through his chest - finally Robert can reap the reward of his own insane, brilliant design choices.

This house of theirs that Robert built for them both to live in, that was always designed for their family - this house that has been a home for months with an empty space in it, big and unwieldy and oppressive sometimes, loud with its emptiness that Aaron spent so much energy trying to ignore. He thinks about the watch in his bedside table and the messy cupboard downstairs filled with machines that Aaron isn’t even sure how to use and the little spare room at the top that Aaron hasn’t been in in months because he told himself if he kept the door shut he could pretend that they never even had a little makeshift office that no one in the house had ever needed without Robert there.

Robert’s hand squeezes around Aaron’s and Aaron isn’t sure he still knows how to breathe around the weight in his chest - he pulls Robert into the bedroom and leans around him to gently close the door and just stays in his space, buries his face into Robert’s neck. Robert’s hand reaches up through Aaron’s hair and then back down and then they’re kissing again and it’s quiet and it feels more right than Aaron can even put into words.

 

 

**_singing ain’t this life so sweet_ **

 

Aaron wakes up to the feeling of the rough of Robert’s chin scratching lightly against his chest as Robert turns his head, tip of his nose pressing into the skin above Aaron’s heart. The fizzing of happiness still hasn’t stopped, it surges up through him like excitement, like the prospect of Aaron’s life as it lies ahead of him is something to be happy about, and leaves behind it a blanket of contentment.

He can feel Robert smiling into his skin, wide and deep and affecting. Aaron shoves at Robert’s head a little, to get him to roll off slightly so that Aaron can see his face.

“ _Sick of me already?_ ” He says, rolling willingly anyway and looking up at Aaron. The smile is still there and it makes Aaron smile back, like his face has been programmed to respond to Robert’s happiness with his own, like there’s a tendril of it reaching out to pull at Aaron’s cheeks before Aaron’s own brain can even give them the go ahead, and his mouth is just powerless to stop it. His heart beats hard.

“ _You’d better hope not - you can’t leave this room until Liv is up and out to school,”_ and Robert is already pushing himself up towards Aaron’s face to kiss him. It takes Aaron a moment to realise that neither of them have stopped smiling yet. The fizzing in his chest won’t quieten down and Aaron wonders if it will always be there, if he’ll have to learn to breathe and eat and talk around it. Around this sparky happiness. It’s a future he can live with, he thinks, as Robert’s hands pull his face up gently, guiding his body into a more upright position and Robert’s lips keep pressing to his and the smiles soften a little and Robert is there, here, in their home, in their bed and their lives. He thinks _that’s my husband_ and the happiness is like a system shock, a sharp knock at his heart.

He can live with it.

**Author's Note:**

> i mean, this is Too Much but it's 1am and i have feelings so don't judge me. it's basically a song fic. i have no regrets.
> 
> i'm @ littleatticboy on tumblr


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